52
NELSON GOVERNMENT GAZETTE

By the Estimates which will be submitted to you
you will find that the reductions which have been
made effect a saving to the extent of between
£12,000 and £13,000 in the annual expenditure of
the Province in salaries and contingencies.

In making so sweeping a retrenchment, I have
performed a difficult and extremely unpleasant duty.
I ask for your support and encouragement in a task
which I have endeavored to execute with as little
inconvenience to the public and as little hardship to
individuals as under the circumstances was possible.

The principle upon which I have mainly effected
this large reduction in our expenditure has been that
which invariably guides commercial establishments in
a similar position—namely, the reduction of the num-
ber of officers employed, and not the reduction of the
salaries of those whose services cannot be dispensed
with, and whose work is, in most cases, largely
increased.

3. When the Estimates for the current year, which
   are now in course of preparation, are placed before
   you, you will see that I have abolished the formal
   distinction of "Departments" in the Provincial ser-
   vice, and have classed the various offices in groups
   under distinctive headings. Each officer will be
   required to give his services in any way in which they
   can be made efficiently available; an arrangement
   which although only occasionally practicable, will
   probably prove useful with a staff so greatly
   diminished.

4. The office of Commissioner of the South-west
   Goldfields having become vacant by the resignation
   of Mr. Kynnersley, I have not thought it necessary
   to appoint a successor to that officer, whose ordinary
   duties can, now that a line of telegraph has been
   established throughout the district, as well as with
   head quarters, be efficiently performed by the several
   Wardens, while the more settled character of the
   Goldfields renders the services of a resident officer
   with large powers comparatively unnecessary.

5. You will be aware that the execution of many
   of the Public Works, for which the appropriation
   in your last session, has unavoidably been postponed,
   and that much dissatisfaction has arisen in conse-
   quence, especially on the West Coast, where a
   movement in favor of separation has been initiated,
   and a petition to the General Assembly, praying that
   the District may be formed into a separate Province
   or County, is now in course of signature.

This movement originated in Westport in conse-
quence of my refusal to expend a large sum of money,
without your authority and directly contrary to laws
in the protection of the Colliery and Native Reserves
from the destructive action of the Buller river.
Reports upon this subject from the Colonial and
Provincial Engineers will be laid before you, and I
think you will agree with me that, allowing for the
very probable destruction of portions of the work
before the whole could be completed, it would be
throwing away money to enter upon the construction
of protective works with a less sum than £15,000.

While I deeply regret the danger to which both
private and public property is exposed, I am not
prepared to recommend you to withdraw that sum,
or to outlay like it, from the amount available for
expenditure on public works on the goldfields gene-
rally, to the manifest injury of the districts of the
Grey and Charleston, which have equal claims with
Westport upon the public funds, especially in view
of the fact that far more than its due proportion of
the revenue has hitherto been expended in West-
port; although I consider that the past expenditure
has been fully justified by the importance of West-
port as by far the best port on the West Coast of
this island.

Looking to the immediate origin and object of the
petition for separation, I can scarcely believe that
any large proportion of the inhabitants of the dis-
tricts of the goldfields will be induced to commit
political suicide by attaching their names to it.

The petition itself abounds with the most gross
and palpable mis-statements both of facts and figures.
Its framers have not scrupled also to misrepresent
the opinions I expressed in my first address to you
on taking office; in one case by suppressing the con-
cluding words of a sentence, and in another by
applying words which I used in reference to the effect
of the goldfields generally, the office of Otago, Canter-
bury, and Nelson, upon the finances of the Colony,
to the financial relations between the South-west
Goldfields and the rest of this Province, to which the
words quoted had no reference whatever.

If there were any truth in the allegations of the
petition, that a due share of the revenue raised upon
the goldfields had not been expended within them,
I have no doubt the General Assembly would lend a
willing ear to the prayer for a redress of the griev-
ance, but, as a reference to the published accounts of
the Province will at once show there is no foundation
whatever for those allegations, I have little fear that
the Assembly will consent to the establishment of
additional Province, or Counties, involving the mul-
tiplication of Governments and Councils, greatly
increasing the already excessive administrative expen-
diture of the Colony, and adding to the existing num-
ber and complication of its laws.

My own opinions, as you are aware, have always
been strongly in favor of the reduction instead of
the increase of these evils, and you may rely upon
my best efforts, as a member of the House of Repre-
sentatives, in opposition to the petition to which I
am referring, as well as to all others of a similar
character.

6. The Waste Lands Board having been unsuc-
   cessful in their endeavors to lease the Brunner Coal
   Mine to a Company prepared to construct a Railway
   for the transport of the coals to Cobden, I have
   thought it better to continue to work the mine upon
   a small scale than to entrust it to a temporary
   tenant, who might work it with a view to immediate
   profit only, to the permanent injury of the property.
   Apart from the purchase of plant, amounting to
   about £200, a small profit has resulted from the
   year's operations, but upon this subject I refer you
   to the detailed report of Mr. Warden Dutton.

7. An Act embodying the resolutions you agreed
   to in June last, enabling me to appoint an Agent in
   London, with full power to enter into a contract for
   the construction of a line of Railway from Nelson to
   Cobden and Westport, was passed by the General
   Assembly without material alteration. As soon as
   copies of the Act could be obtained, they were for-
   warded to Mr. Morrison, the agent for the Colony,
   as well as for this Province, together with copies of
   all surveys, reports, maps, plans, and other documents
   bearing on the subject, and a power of attorney under
   the seal of the Province. Mr. Morrison has acknow-
   ledged their receipt, but as the letters of instructions
   forwarded by the following mail had not reached him,
   he confines his letter to that acknowledgment, and a
   month or two will probably elapse before I can hope
   to receive from Mr. Morrison a report as to his pros-
   pects of success in the London Money Market.

8. Amongst the Public Works, the execution of
   which I have been compelled to abandon, is the pro-
   posed Dry Dock in Nelson Harbor, and my estimate
   of the probable revenue for the current year is not
   large enough to justify me in again proposing to you
   to appropriate the large sum required for this purpose.
   But the successful operation of a floating Dock, which